There was a 490 LL that went for a mere $299 today on Ebay. I don’t need it, but it was still a challenge to leave it alone. I don’t really content for most toys, just have a little rod problem. I like the variety when fishing the same water for a week straight. But I know guys who have 30, 40, and over that counting their saltwater stuff. Just nuts.

Now for most flies, I could probably contend except with fly-shop owners. But again, I like the variety more than just seeing how long or how many days I can fish one pattern. The ‘ole “fish all season with a parachute Adams” thing got boring when I tried it, despite its huge challenge. I’d rather catch a fish or two, change bugs, catch a fish or two, . . . and keep changing up, just to see. Once I now they’ll eat something in a given circumstance, I like a new mystery. I’ll retire a pattern for a month, or a season, if it works “too good.”

Spines on a Glass rod? My older Fenwicks have ’em. Same principles, just more flex in most cases. I build a couple of Lamiglass Honey’s last year, and they both had pronounced spines I built on. In my cases the spine and the little bit of ‘bend” in the rod were parallel, one in the same. One of the older Fenwick FF-75’s I have isn’t on spine/bend. I have two tips for it though, and plan to re-wrap one of them, just to see if I can notice a difference. Probably not, but it won’t take too much effort to re-wrap one tip. It’ll look better, and maybe fish better in my own mind, regardless of the facts.

You need a certain mindset to fish one fly all season. It was a challenge when I did it with the Adams. Not so much when the fly was working, but when it wasn’t. I find no challenge in always using a fly that works.

I hate to fail at any goal I set for myself. I can be pretty stubborn about that.

Don Green, founder of Sage in 1980, along with Bruce Kirschner, placed the guides at 90 degrees in relation to the spine. His belief was that the rod would track straighter on both the forward and the backcast distributing power evenly.
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Well, I finally got around to checking the only Sage rod I’ve ever owned (a 20-something year old SP, a 9′ 4 wt, which remains the best graphite trout rod I’ve fished with) and the spine is….opposite the guides, just like I would have done my self.